


Drink Poison from His Tongue

by Vitreous_Humor



Series: Set Fire to Our Bed [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anal Play, BDSM, Celestial Sign Language, Consent Issues, Dom/sub, Gags, Lecturing, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Sadist Aziraphale, Subspace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 07:49:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21012302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vitreous_Humor/pseuds/Vitreous_Humor
Summary: “I suppose I could just nip along to my own flat. Until we're... that is, until I'm feeling a little more...”“That would have been a rather clever thing to do twenty minutes ago,” Aziraphale said. “I wouldn't have liked it, but it would  have been your right to do so, and then in your own space, you could have said whatever terrible things you wanted to say, away from me.”***Aziraphale reminds Crowley that he does not care for it when Crowley speaks badly about himself.





	Drink Poison from His Tongue

“If you wanted some peace and quiet, Aziraphale, there are better ways to get it,” Crowley suggested.

“Of course there are,” Aziraphale said absently, “if what I actually wanted was peace and quiet.”

Floating above his broad and neatly manicured hands was a glowing lump of something that hadn't yet decided if it was meant to be rubber or steel or silicone or marble or wood. It shifted from a shape that was close to a ball to something that was long and flat, a bit like a thick tongue depressor. Crowley tore his eyes away from it.

“I mean it, angel,” Crowley tried. “if you don't want me to be here, then I don't have to be here.”

“When did I say that?” Aziraphale asked, still focused on the thing between his hands.

It was about three inches long now, first gleaming with chrome and then dulling down to rubber. A pass of Aziraphale's hands put small nubs over its smooth surface. The angel hummed speculatively, and Crowley shifted on the chair where he had been put.

“You... you didn't,” Crowley admitted. “I suppose I could just nip along to my own flat. Until we're... that is, until I'm feeling a little more...”

“That would have been a rather clever thing to do twenty minutes ago,” Aziraphale said. “I wouldn't have liked it, but it would have been your right to do so, and then in your own space, you could have said whatever terrible things you wanted to say, away from me.”

“Really?”

“I suppose there may be a time when I want to take that right away from you, but I haven't yet.”

The utterly reasonable tone of Aziraphale's voice made something sick and hot wake up in Crowley's body, and he had to bite his tongue down on the urge to give up that right on the spot. It was too much, too good to imagine that Aziraphale could control his comings and goings like that, as if he were a pet to be kept on a short leash or a long one.

_Oh Satan, look what he's doing with what you've already given him, do _not _make this worse._

Or better.

Crowley fought down that voice, because he didn't know where it would lead. He suspected that even Aziraphale didn't know.

“Angel, I'm _sorry_,” Crowley said dejectedly. “Look, I'm sorry...”

“And yet you keep doing it,” Aziraphale said, his voice stern. “I point things out, I remind you, I _gently remonstrate_ and yet you don't listen. This was the only thing I mentioned that even made you pause.”

It had made him do more than pause. Crowley had managed to keep his tongue from doing the stupid thing it liked to do for almost two weeks, something of a record, truth be told.

The thing in Aziraphale's hands resolved itself at last into a thick stubby black plug about the length and shape of Crowley's on thumb, though rather thicker. There were neat rows of small nubs along the... the shaft, he supposed, and at the blunt end, there was a series of thin straps ending in dainty buckles. Aziraphale held it up making a small satisfied noise, incidentally letting Crowley see it too, and the demon bit back a groan.

“All right, Crowley. Come here, please.”

Crowley told himself he wasn't going to even as he did, told himself not to kneel when Aziraphale pushed down gently on his shoulder, was _shocked_ when he let Aziraphale ruffle his hair. He braced himself, but then the angel didn't even have the courtesy to do as he had promised.

“Now, I need you to understand why this is happening to you.”

“'Cos you're a great bloody sadist with control issues.”

Aziraphale smiled.

“Why _else?”_

Crowley couldn't take his eyes off of the contraption of silicone and leather hanging so easily from Aziraphale's hand. He swallowed hard.

“Because. Because I called m'self stupid.”

“I don't _care for it_ when you say such things about yourself, Crowley. They're not true. When you say things like that, that you're stupid, that you could never be loved or forgiven, that you're a monster, you're hurting yourself. That's not allowed.”

Aziraphale's voice was perfectly calm, but Crowley, tuned to six thousand years of one particular angel's geologic tremors, could feel something shifting under the surface. This was affecting Aziraphale far more than he let on. For perhaps the first time, Crowley wondered if the things he said about himself, barbed, casual, and such a long-standing habit that he barely noticed anymore, were hurting Aziraphale as well.

“Oh, angel, I'm sorry-” he said, shocked, but Aziraphale's fingers tightened in his hair.

“I do not,” Aziraphale said crisply, “want you to be sorry. I want you to take note. I want you to remember. And I want you to _stop_. Open your mouth.”

Crowley parted his lips hesitantly, and then gasped a little as Aziraphale slid his thumb between them. It wasn't careless or rough, but there was a certain calm force to it. Crowley had a brief moment of what felt like hysterical fear, and then it was over and a strange calm flooded through him, making him sway a little as Aziraphale probed his mouth gently. This was going to happen, of course it was. He no longer had to fear it or to worry about it.

He thought Aziraphale might jam in the silicone gag, force it past his teeth and let it bruise his hard palate. Instead, Aziraphale was scrupulously gentle with him, teasing the corner of his mouth to make him open wider, letting the rounded tip of the gag sit on his lower lip for a moment so he could get used to the taste and the texture.

“You're being sweet,” Crowley muttered around it, aware that he wouldn't be able to do so for much longer.

“I can be, sometimes. Are you ready?”

“Does it matter?”

“Would you like a little longer, my dear?”

The tenderness was almost too much. Crowley closed his eyes, because it _ached_ to have Aziraphale be his strange cool version of sweet on top of it all. It wasn't nice, it wasn't kind, it certainly wasn't _merciful,_ but it was sweet.

“No,” he said quietly. “No, I don't.”

Aziraphale made a pleased little noise- _bloody sadist_\- and slid the gag all the way in. It wasn't steel, as Aziraphale had threatened once, but the silicone was hardly less stiff, lying rigid on his tongue, the tip just barely shy of his throat. He swallowed against the spit that tried to come up, and Aziraphale made a soft shushing noise as he fastened the straps behind Crowley's head. They were thin, tight without being cutting, and once they were buckled, a breathtaking helplessness sunk through Crowley's body.

It took him a moment to realize that his hands were still free, that he wasn't in any way constrained. He reached for the buckles only to have Aziraphale take his hands away gently. Crowley whimpered around the gag -the_ bridle, _as Aziraphale had called it once or twice- and Aziraphale rubbed his hands firmly, thumbs making soothing circles over the cup of Crowley's palms.

“You don't want to do that,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley scowled, pulling his hands away.

_What am I supposed to do, then? _Crowley signed. It wasn't a human sign language, but instead something far older, from an iteration before Design had quite decided how they felt about the sense of hearing. In the end, hearing was in and electroception was out, but the deaf angels who preferred it to telepathy kept Celestial Sign Language around. CelSL had the distinctions of having about a dozen signs for holy, a few signs that would render any human who witnessed it stunned with the glory and majesty of the divine, and no sign at all for bathroom.

_Whatever you like, _Aziraphale signed back, his accent a little slower and more pronounced than Crowley's. _Would you like me to read to you?_

Crowley shook his head, and Aziraphale smiled at him, cupping his cheek over the straps.

“Let me know if you change your mind, or if there's anything else you need.”

_I need an angel who doesn't muzzle me like a blessed biting dog, _Crowley thought furiously._ I need someone who will let me say whatever the fuck it is I want to say, because it's my right, isn't it, 'specially if it's true... _

He bit down hard on the gag and realized that it couldn't be just silicone because he couldn't shear through it with his teeth. He could bite as much as he wanted, and it wouldn't give, and he could snarl and slobber around it as much as he liked, but he couldn't speak.

He bit down harder, contrary and angry, but the only result was that his jaws ached, his mouth filled with water, and the very tip of the thing touched the back of his throat, making him shudder at the feeling of being gagged.

“It's all right,”Aziraphale said softly, stroking his hair. “It's all right. It's not going to hurt you.”

Crowley growled through the gag, shaking Aziraphale's hands off of him, standing up to step back and glare. Aziraphale looked mildly surprised at that, and for a moment, Crowley was disappointed. He wanted Aziraphale to run after him, to stroke him and coddle him and tell him how well he was taking this, but the angel merely nodded.

“All right. I have some reading to do. If you need anything at all, just let me know. Otherwise, I'll loose you in the morning.”

It was an unpleasant realization that Aziraphale hadn't told him he couldn't leave. He could if he wanted, snap his fingers and go home, or, if he was feeling particularly unkind, go wandering around Soho and point silently towards the bookshop whenever anyone asked him what he was on about.

He almost did, but it was too much. Having his mouth filled, having what he had always considered one of his best weapons taken away from him, left him feeling disgustingly vulnerable, distressingly small, and after that, incredibly sullen.

Aziraphale took his regular chair under the Tiffany lamp, a thick book in his lap and a glass of rosé at the small side table. Crowley glared at him for another moment longer and then threw himself into the long sofa opposite, arms crossed over his chest and with his back deliberately turned to the angel. Not like he could have any wine, after all.

Crowley liked a good sulk, but his mind didn't seem able to keep it up tonight. Instead, he was too aware of the gag in his mouth, how the small nubbins, so subtle at first, were becoming more noticeable against his tongue. He couldn't stop his mouth from filling with spit, and every time he swallowed, he ended up sucking on the gag in his mouth, which was, after all, shaped a little like a cock.

Of course, once _that _thought occurred, he couldn't shake it, and experimentally, he set his teeth on the silicone base and drew on it again with a slight swallowing motion. Oh, _that_ wasn't bad at all, he decided. The impulse to gag was still there, would become overwhelming if he pushed it too hard, but it was sort of sexy, sort of fun.

Crowley glanced over his shoulder at Aziraphale, who was still reading peaceably. As if to drive home the difference in their positions, Aziraphale picked up his wine glass and took a satisfied sip. _Fine. _

Crowley sucked on the gag a little, taking care with his breathing because he actually didn't want to gag, didn't want his body to seize up or that panic to take hold even if he didn't properly need to breathe. Whatever else he'd accuse the angel of, Aziraphale had designed well. The threat of gagging was always there, but if Crowley sat still and behaved himself, it would only be a threat. Of course, expecting Crowley to behave was always a losing bet, and he flirted with the edge of it, imagining something far rougher and meaner than he would really have wanted, hands in his hair, pressing something hard and unyielding at his throat and down it.

He decided to be turned on by the ache in his jaw and how wet and sloppy he felt. It wasn't, as Aziraphale had said, a punishment, only a reminder, and that made a world of difference. So what if he chose to let it _remind_ him of what it might feel like to be down on his knees, getting his mouth fucked and not being allowed to pull back...?

He had passed off his slight aroused squirming off as restless irritation, or at least, he thought he had until he felt Aziraphale's hand touch his shoulder.

“Goodness,” Aziraphale said mildly. “You _are _in a state.”

Crowley's shoulders came up, and he tried to turn around to face Aziraphale and push backwards into the sofa at the same time. It was a complicated maneuver that was really only successful because he had rather more and rather more articulated vertebrate than a human did.

_Sorry, sorry, _he signed, feeling the heat of a humiliated blush on his cheeks.

The sudden motion made him swallow a little too hard and he started gagging, tearing up and choking in a slight panic until he remembered to breathe through his nose and to force his tongue and jaw to relax.

By the time he relaxed, Aziraphale was knelt by the edge of the sofa, chin propped up on his crossed arms and watching him with a look that could only be described as tender.

“You've nothing to be sorry about, darling. I told you, this isn't a punishment.”

_Then what is it? _

Crowley knew, but suddenly he wanted Aziraphale to say it again. Just in case.

“A reminder,” Aziraphale said patiently. “The only thing that actually made you pause when I mentioned it. Twelve hours where you cannot say anything horrid about yourself to me.”

_Sorry..._

Aziraphale took his hands and held them still. Crowley jumped; it was like getting a hand clapped across his mouth, or it would have been if there weren't a bloody gag already there.

“No. When you owe me an apology, I will ask for one. When you are being punished, I will tell you.”

Aziraphale reached up to press two fingers against the base of Crowley's gag, rocking it slightly so he could feel the nubbins against his tongue. Crowley whined at the slight violation and the way Aziraphale's eyes darkened.

“The bridling... it's a reminder. Perhaps you need to be reminded of other things.”

Crowley freed his hands from Aziraphale's, holding them still in the air for a moment before he started to sign.

_Remind me that you love me. Remind me that you want me._

“I love you,”Aziraphale said immediately. “Better than every sunrise over Egypt, better than the anginetti at Paolo's, better than every pleasure that sunk with Atlantis, better than every angel in heaven and every human on earth, I love you.”

Crowley shuddered. He couldn't sense love, but hell, humans couldn't either, and they still managed to knock out all kinds of poems and sculptures and palaces for it. When Aziraphale told him things like that, he felt as if he could go out and build a palace too, gag notwithstanding.

“And of course I always _want _you, dear boy,” Aziraphale murmured, reaching over to play with the collar of Crowley's shirt. “I want to know what you're thinking, I want to know what you're dreaming, I want you having breakfast with me in the morning and wine with me at dinner. I want to know which stars are yours. I want all of that.”

Crowley's eyes fluttered closed against the way _something _ was slithering around his heart, squeezing so painfully it made tears start in his eyes. That was why he was unprepared what came next.

“But I don't know if you're thinking of those things. I think you're talking about another kind of wanting, aren't you dear?”

Crowley's hands came up again, because no, no, that was perfectly fine, he could listen to Aziraphale talk like that for _ages, _but then Aziraphale caught his hands, closing gently over his fingers. Crowley dug his teeth into his gag- it was _his _gag now, apparently- at the surprise and shock of being so suddenly rendered unintelligible. .

“I'm sorry, darling, I cannot understand you.” Aziraphale said tenderly.

There it was. Crowley knew it very well by this point, and it made his heart thunder in his chest even as his stomach sunk with dread and anticipation.

“I think, “Aziraphale said thoughtfully, “that I want you_ right now._”

With nothing more than that, he took Crowley by the arm and dragged him into a kneeling position on the sofa, his elbows braced on the back and facing away from Aziraphale. When Crowley tried to turn back towards his angel, Aziraphale stopped him with a gentle tug to the straps at the back of Crowley's head.

“If you want to squirm around and fall out of place, that is fine. I will simply return you to position if I need to.”

The shifting of the gag and Aziraphale's perfectly reasonable tone made Crowley's hips buck against the back of the sofa, and that was before Aziraphale came to stand behind him, arms coming around to delicately lower Crowley's zipper. Aziraphale's touch was so light that he barely brushed Crowley's now fully-hard cock at all, and Crowley whined.

“Shush, darling, I just need to get you bare for me...”

Crowley's jeans were notoriously tight, and Aziraphale took more time than he had to easing them and Crowley's silk boxers down. He drew them halfway down Crowley's thighs, and simply left them there.

“Spread your legs for me, won't you, dear? Oh surely you can spread them wider than that...”

He couldn't. His jeans kept him effectively bound, bunched up around his thighs, and he made a whining sound around the gag, already slightly desperate.

“Oh, poor thing. It's all right. Here, this is just as good.”

Crowley gasped and then choked slightly as Aziraphale took hold of his hips and dragged him back almost to the edge of the seat. Now he was bent further, hips pressed back and more vulnerable than he had even been a few moments ago. Aziraphale pressed his hand against the small of Crowley's back, sliding it under the tail of Crowley's shirt.

“Ah, there we are. That's good, that's very good. You're very beautiful like this, you know.”

Crowley wanted to ask him exactly what he meant, whether he meant presenting himself like a cheap little tart or just making himself completely vulnerable to one specific sadistic angel's whims, but he was faintly relieved when he couldn't, not with his mouth or with his hands. He didn't have to be smart, he didn't have to be clever, he just had to...

_To remember he loves me and wants me, _ he thought, and that was when he could feel the last of his resistance drain away. It was replaced by a feeling of almost overwhelming calm, like being dunked in a warm ocean. There was no risk of drowning here. Instead, he simply floated, the calm supporting him, suffused with the knowledge that he was safe and good and that there was nothing else in the world to worry about. If there was, Aziraphale would remind him.

“Oh, there you are, my precious love,” murmured Aziraphale. “_There _you are.”

He suckled on the gag lightly, eyes drifting closed. There was no violent fantasy this time, and even his erection, while still present, had taken on a less-urgent kind of need. There was no need to be anything but exactly what he was, and that was Aziraphale's.

He stirred when he felt something press against his hole, whimpering something half-way between a question and a protest. He _liked _things just as they were. He just wanted to be still like this for a while, or maybe forever. He wasn't sure which, and he rather wanted to have the chance to find out.

“Precious,” Aziraphale cooed, and Crowley blushed with pleasure at the praise. “Be good for me, darling. Only let me have you, and I will make you feel so very good...”

Crowley whimpered around the gag, managing to nod slightly. If Aziraphale had been anything less than perfectly gentle, Crowley might have shot back up, had all that lovely calm broken to bits, but he didn't. Instead Crowley's hands moved fitfully on the back of the sofa, and he pressed his hips back, presenting himself, making himself available and easy for whatever it was that Aziraphale wanted.

“Oh, what a brave boy,” Aziraphale murmured, and even in his haze, Crowley wondered, _why brave?_

Then he felt whatever it was in Aziraphale's hand pressed against his hole again, this time slick and cold, and he keened. It felt big, far too big, no taper at all that he could imagine fitting inside him.

Aziraphale leaned in to kiss the back of his neck again, fitting his teeth so carefully against his nape that Crowley relaxed in spite of himself.

“Shh, just stay as you are, darling. You may do exactly as you like, and you know that I will not be cross with you. Only I want you to be still now, and to let me do as I like. I love you. I love you so much, darling...”

Crowley mumbled something around the gag, feeling his own saliva dribbling down his chin to soak his shirt and the fabric of the sofa. When had that happened? It was a little unpleasant, but he couldn't think of that now, not when he wanted to do exactly as Aziraphale said.

He grunted against the gag as Aziraphale teased his hole with the object. It was cold, so very cold it had to be steel, and heavy as well, liberally coated with enough lube that it had to be difficult for the angel to hang on to it. He had taken similar things before for his own fun, but this felt new and different. This wasn't for him, after all.

Crowley whined against the gag as Aziraphale started pressing the beastly thing rhythmically against him, letting his body warm the metal, allowing Crowley both to accustom himself to the idea of its girth while warming the tight ring of muscle there. It was a sublime kind of torture, both sweet and utterly uncompromising, and Crowley's eyes fluttered closed, letting the sensation of utter helplessness have him.

There was a few sly false starts, moments when he was sure that Aziraphale would _shove. _Those moments caused Crowley to whine in desperate protest, but he gave even that up after a while, too addicted to the pure calm of giving everything over to the angel. When it changed, when he felt the pressure against his hole shift from probing to unyielding, he was almost boneless over the back of the sofa, teeth dug lightly into his gag and entire body relaxed.

The push was slow but it never ceased, and Crowley whined when he realized that Aziraphale was done mucking about. He made a low, panicked sound, but then Aziraphale was talking to him, free hand stroking Crowley's hair, nuzzling Crowley's shoulder. He was telling Crowley how very lovely he was, how after this he would spend weeks giving Crowley exactly what it was he wanted, no matter how small or how silly. He would do all of that whether Crowley took this or whether Crowley begged to be done, and that meant, of course, that Crowley wanted nothing more than to take it for him.

The stretch burned, making Crowley shake and groan as best he could. It was slow, but it did not stop, and he felt tears prick at his eyes. The sensation was enough like pain that it should have shocked him back into himself, made him protest if only for form's sake or put his clever mind to work trying to turn the sensation into something sexy instead of just overwhelming. Instead, he was still somehow in that state of perfect calm and receptiveness.

It was just something that was happening to him; _Aziraphale _was just something that was happening to him. It didn't matter. _He _didn't matter, and it was the easiest thing in the world.

He groaned when the toy popped past the ring of muscle, hiding his face in the crook of his arm. It wasn't pain, or at least, there wasn't much pain, but the intensity of the sensation pushed out everything else. He felt impaled, and that was before Aziraphale started to rock the heavy thing inside him, opening him even further.

Slow tears fell from his eyes, but there wasn't any sadness in him at all. How in the world could he be sad with his angel's attention focused on him like this, with Aziraphale dropping soft kisses on his back and his shoulders as he fucked him?

“Perfect, so very perfect and all mine,” Aziraphale whispered, and there was an edge to his voice then, something dark and needy.

Crowley would have thought about it harder if the edge of the toy hadn't hit something inside him that made his entire body tense, that sent a shoal of bright sparks swimming behind his eyelids. No time for crying or dark thoughts then, it was too much, and he clawed at the sofa underneath him, keening helplessly.

Aziraphale rocked the toy a fraction of an inch deeper inside him, letting his body push it back out before easing it back in. If Crowley hadn't been panting, overwhelmed and shattered in a way he didn't even care about putting back together, he might have thought of a cat playing with a favorite toy, or, less charitably, a wounded snake.

Crowley dug his fingertips into the sofa, and at some point, he had gotten ragingly hard again. He bucked away from the toy, pushing his cock against the soft fabric- oh fucking hell, was he going to bring himself off against a damned _tartan_ _sofa?_\- hiding his face as best he could the whole time because it was all too, too much.

“Good boy,” Aziraphale all but hissed. “Just _look _at you. Look at you taking all of this for me, _my _darling boy...”

Oh fuck, but he would do anything, take _anything_ so long as he could hear that slight wrecked tone in Aziraphale's voice.

This _wasn't _what an angel was supposed to sound like. No angel in Heaven or Earth should have sounded like _that. _Crowley was a demon, after all, and reluctant or not, it could get him absolutely drunk to hear an angel talk like that because of him.

The toy was moving more easily inside him now, and catching his breath, he started to rock back on it, impaling himself with a greed that could rival Aziraphale's own. He was rising up out of the muffling calm, a little more himself, but that terrible and relentless desire to please was still there.

He wanted to be _perfect _for Aziraphale, sluttier, dirtier and hungrier than anyone else the angel might have chosen.

_Look at me, _he wanted to say. _Never stop looking at me. Look at what I'll do for you, what I'll take for you. Aren't I gorgeous? Aren't I perfect, and so good?_

He dug his teeth into his gag, rough hoarse cries escaping from deep in his chest. He hadn't thought he could get much tighter around the heavy toy, but now he found he was wrong, riding it, _taking_ it, trying to squeeze every last ounce of terrifying sensation from it he could, because oh, he knew he could not bear it for much longer.

Still there was a moment, stuffed full and strung out, that Crowley didn't think he could. It was too much. His entire body felt besieged, and he was too aware of everything from the tools invading his mouth and his ass to the weave of the tartan fabric under his fingernails.

It was the complete inverse of the calm he had felt before. This was a panic at the idea he might be kept suspended like this indefinitely, unable to claim the pleasure that he knew Aziraphale wanted him to have or to back away from it.

He could have screamed, but instead he came, shuddering hard, groaning into the crook of his arm. The pleasure might as well have been cruelty for all the mercy it had on him, and all he could do was endure it as he had endured all the rest, listening for Aziraphale's soft words of praise and love, letting the angel's hunger wrap around him.

He clung to the back of the sofa as the shudders worked their way through him, smaller and smaller until he was finally still. Aziraphale was working the toy out of him now, and Crowley whined past his gag just to make Aziraphale pause and pet him and coo at him lovingly. He rather thought he deserved some coddling after all that, and he was pleased to get it. When the toy was finally out, he keened at the loss, but then Aziraphale was settling him back on the sofa, letting him stretch out on the soft cushions. A snap of Aziraphale's fingers cleaned him up, and a second dressed him in soft pajamas. Then Aziraphale was pulling a soft blanket over his hips and taking his hand.

“Tap my hand twice if you want water.”

For a moment Crowley wondered why he should, and then he dug his teeth into his gag again as he remembered. For a little while, it had been the least of his worries. Now there was something almost friendly about it, something comforting.

_No, just stay right there, _he signed. It was one-handed and sloppy, but Aziraphale nodded.

Crowley hesitated for a moment, and then raised his hand again.

_Does it ruin the reminder if I sleep for a while?_

He wasn't sure if he could sleep with a gag strapped in, but a certain heaviness to his limbs, a softness to the edges of the world, told him that he wanted to try.

“Not at all, my dear. Would you like to go upstairs?”

_No, I want to stay right here, _he signed. _I want you to stay right here, too._

Aziraphale gave him a dry look.

“Right here?”

He was seated on the hard floor by Crowley's sofa, one hand still tight in Crowley's own.

_Yes._

Aziraphale laughed, moving in to give him a kiss straight over the base of the gag. Crowley shivered, clutching at Aziraphale's hand a little tighter. He wasn't entirely free of the calm that had sunk so deeply into him earlier.

“All right, darling,” Aziraphale said, settling on the floor. “Close your eyes. Sleep a while. If you are still sleeping when your twelve hours are up, I shall wake you.”

Crowley watched with drowsy amusement as Aziraphale cast about for a book he could read one handed. He shifted a little so he could bury his nose in Aziraphale's hair, the smell of angel and old books more comforting than anything else in the world.

As he drifted off, Crowley rather thought that he was forgetting something, but then he let it go. If it was really important, Aziraphale would remind him of it.

**Author's Note:**

> *Okay, basically, A History of Unpleasantness made me sad, so I finished this one up. It's been in the works for a while now.
> 
> *This was meant to be a simple story about gags, and then (makes a mushrooming gesture).
> 
> *Aziraphale actually can't solve all problems by taking exacting domineering control over it... but he's going to try.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Drink Poison from His Tongue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21200657) by [jellyfishfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishfire/pseuds/jellyfishfire)


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